Starbird Murphy and the World Outside (14 page)

Much of the morning was a frantic blur. I learned that a four-top is a table where four people can sit, and “Behind you” is something you say in a restaurant when you're carrying dishes or hot coffee behind someone's back. “Busing a table” means picking up plates coated in syrup and empty jam containers and dirty knives, and carrying the tray through a busy restaurant to the dishwasher without dumping it into a pile of ceramic shards on the floor. The restaurant opened at six thirty, and by ten, I must have walked twenty miles in tiny circles.

“Starbird, could you water table two?” “Starbird, can you bus table six?” “Starbird, a clean fork to table one, and rye bread to table seven.” So much noise. I took coffee to the table that wanted sour cream, spilled juice on a child who thumped his head against my drink tray, and gave someone a hot tea who asked for an iced tea. At least I didn't drop a tray.

“Could you bus table eight?” Europa asked around noon, breezing by with a pot of coffee in each hand.

I grabbed my busing tray from the wait station and headed to a booth. The check was still on the table in a black plastic tray, along with three bills. The top bill said
Five Dollars
along the bottom edge and had a number 5 in each of its corners. There was a picture of a stern-looking bearded man in the center and the words
The United States of America
, along with seals, stamps, and numbers. I recognized money, but I had never seen it so close before.

I cleared the table all around the check, but I couldn't take my eyes off the bill. Using a napkin so I didn't touch it with my bare hand, I slid the top bill aside and looked at the one underneath it. The second was distinctly green with a massive building in the middle and the number 10 in each corner. The words
In God We Trust
hovered over the building like it was floating in the sky.

“Could you drop that by the register for me, Starbird?” Europa rushed past with four plates. “I'm weeded.”

My tray was sitting on the table, now full of all the dishes and glassware. The rest of the table was cleared and wiped down, except for the check and the three bills. I hesitated. EARTH taught us that money was the root of corruption. But Europa had been touching money all morning, tucking it in her apron, putting it in the register, and she was a Believer. I scooped the money and the check into my hand in one movement. Nothing changed. The noise of the restaurant was all around me as I walked toward the register by the front door. I put the check and the money beneath a paperweight and took my tray to the dish sink.

 
 

When our morning shift ended, I had touched money seven more times, cleared fifty tables, and eaten one slice of bread with butter standing up in the dish room. It was a miracle I never broke a plate.

When Felicia showed up at one thirty, V told me to grab an empty stool at the counter and order whatever I wanted. The morning rush had eased enough to leave an open spot near the register.

“I recommend the polenta. I highly suggest you steer away from the eggs,” Devin said, leaning on the counter with a pen in his hand and an order pad in the other. “Nice hustle today.”

“I'll have the veggie scramble with tofu and rye bread.”

“Tofu scramble rye,” Devin yelled to Paul, who was at the grill behind him. “Tofu scramble rye,” Paul chimed back.

By the time I finished eating my heavenly, hot, life- affirming meal, several spaces had freed up at the counter, and there was no longer a line of people waiting at the door.

“What's this?” Felicia was at the register. “Why aren't these in the till?” She held up the checks and cash I had been piling under the paperweight all morning.

“I put them there,” I said. “Europa was weeded.”

“I hope no one wanted change,” she said, waving them around toward me. “Well, I'm not ringing them up. You put them there, you can do it.”

“I haven't learned the register yet.”

“Of course,” she said. “Fine, I'll do it.”

From my stool, I watched Felicia ring up the first check. She typed the cost with the decimal point and then hit a button saying
FOOD
or
BEVERAGE
and a large plus sign. She did this for each item and hit
SUBTOTAL
. After that, she keyed in the amount the customer left and hit
CASH
, causing the register to ring and the drawer to fly open. The screen told her how much change to take out.

“Order up, table ten,” Paul called, sliding two plates into our pickup window at the other end of the counter.

Felicia slammed the cash drawer, put the change in the tip jar, and speared the check on a metal spike. Then she went to the pickup window and took the plates to a booth in the corner.

I got up and went to the register, reminding myself of the steps. I was delighted when the register rang and the cash drawer slid open, confirming the amount of change I had already figured in my head for the first bill. I dropped the change in the tip jar and skewered the check. I did the rest of them quickly, punching the numbers into the register just the way I punched them into the calculator back on the Farm when Iron and I figured measurements for the new chicken coop. I felt a pang of sadness. I missed my roosters. But I felt a rush of anger, too, thinking about Iron. A few splotches sprang up on my chest.

All the checks lay impaled on the metal spike when Felicia found me at the register.

“I guess you want me to train you.” She sighed, moving me away from the machine. “Where are the rest of the checks?”

“I did them.”

“You said you weren't trained on the register.”

“I watched you.”

“Did you put the change in the tip jar?”

I nodded.

“And the check here?” She pointed to the spear.

I nodded again.

“Well, I guess we'll know how bad you screwed up when we run the Z report.” She shook her head. “Not like it isn't always wrong,” she added before she walked away through the beaded curtain.

 12 

A
ll I wanted to do when V and I got back to Beacon House was sleep for fourteen hours. I hadn't felt so tired since the last apple-pressing day on the Farm. But a nap was not in my future because the minute V opened the front door of Beacon House, Ephraim said, “Great, babysitters! I've got to go to the café and call Gamma. If I don't talk to her today, she's going to convene a war council and the Farm is going to attack Beacon House.” Ephraim was lying on the couch with a picture book spread out below him on the floor. Kale was sitting on the rug holding a plastic horse, and Eris was in his playpen banging a rattle across the bars like a prisoner in a cell.

“You didn't call her back yet?” V took off her shoes and hung her purse on the coat rack.

“Had to watch the kids. People before profits. Don't worry, it's all good.” Ephraim sat up with some effort and then stood from the couch only to lose his balance and sit right back down again.

“Yeah, all good,” V muttered, going to him. “Don't go in today.” She touched him on the forehead and cheek.

“You're a little young to be mothering me, aren't you? It was just tunnel vision.”

V insisted on driving Ephraim to the café, leaving me to watch the kids. I spent the next thirty minutes lying on the couch, watching a three-inch-tall horse weave in and out of chair legs, climb onto the arms of couches, and perform death-defying dismounts from end tables, while using all of my effort to stay awake. At one point, Kale's horse galloped up my leg, across my back, and took a leap from my head onto the rug. I thought about Indus, the way he ran after the truck when he saw me leaving. I didn't stop to talk to him. I didn't even wave. The back of my hand was still red and raw from where I scraped it against the barn wood the night I saw him with Lyra. It felt dry and inflamed from all the times I washed my hands at the café.

“Makes you wonder how Europa does it,” V said, coming in the front door and finding me comatose on the couch. She folded her arms over her chest and stared at Kale. Fern Moon folded her arms that way sometimes when she looked at me. Fern would have the yurt to herself now. It must get quiet at night.

“What's a Z report?” I asked.

“When each shift ends, you run a report of sales from the register. Then you compare it to the money in the till. Why?”

I sat up. “I want to go back to the Farm. I think I was wrong about my Calling. I should probably go back with Ephraim on the next pickup.”

“Wait, hold up.” V made the sign for time-out. “You did great today. It's just new job jitters. You can do this.”

“What if I don't want to do this?”

“Well, you need to get off the Farm sometime.”

“Why would I have to get off the Farm? EARTH probably wanted me to stay on the Farm. He never said I should leave.”

V bit her lip and stared at me. “The next Farm pickup isn't until Tuesday. If you still want to go back, then no big deal, okay?”

Tuesday sounded as far away as spring.
What if Indus forgot what he wanted to say to me?

I was about to answer when the front door opened and Io walked in, holding a cloth bag in each hand. “You won't be as amazed as you should be by what I have in my hands, but you should be truly amazed. Hi, Kale.” The little girl ran over and circled Io's leg with her horse. “Behold your new wardrobe, purchased for $19.57.”

Io dropped the two bags and her purse in the middle of the living room rug. Kale's horse jumped over each of them.

“I started at the five-dollar box at Crossroads, shopped the half-price tags at Value Village, and then the free box in the staff room at Red Light. I want you to know that I seriously considered keeping the yellow dress for myself.” Io dumped the contents of both bags on the rug, revealing three T-shirts that were worn but had cute patterns; two skirts, one orange and cotton, the other plaid and wool; and a yellow dress with elastic at the waist and a rainbow across one shoulder.

“Won't I be cold?” I asked touching the fabric of the thin dress.

“I'm not going to get mad because I know you're just off the Farm, but seriously, I did just spend two hours shopping for you with pennies in my pocket.” She collapsed the dress she had been holding up onto her lap. “And these are insanely cute.”

“I'm sorry.” I stood up from the couch. “I do really appreciate it.”

“No shoes?” V got Eris out of his playpen and bounced him on her hip.

“Tall order, but give me time.”

Io and V played with the kids while I halfheartedly modeled my new clothes for them. Then we started making dinner. I was starting to like V and Io. It was too bad we could never be
truly
close, since they weren't Believers.

 
 

“Hidy ho,” called Ephraim as he opened the front door an hour later.

“We're in here,” yelled V. “How bright is our future?” she asked him after he had taken off his shoes and joined us.

I was toasting bread to go with the garlic soup.

“Smooth seas. There's no better business than the restaurant business. In every economy, people have to eat.” He took a small piece off my bread plate and popped it in his mouth.

I flashed back—was it really only two nights ago?—to when Iron told me the Farm was failing financially. At least the café was doing well.
What if I did go back to the Farm and then it failed?

V looked at Ephraim for a moment with her hands on her hips. Then she turned around and dished up a bowl of soup from the pot. “Yeah, people have to eat,” she said with a sigh, handing him the bowl. “Including us.”

 
 

“Three dollars and seventy-six cents,” Felicia said before we even took off our sweaters. She was already behind the register, wearing her apron and drinking a glass of orange juice when we walked into the café the next morning.

“Huh?” V said, partly because the music was turned up on the café speakers. Paul, Devin, and Sun were behind the counter, prepping food. Europa wasn't with us because she had the afternoon shift.

“Z report.” Felicia puckered her lips together into a smirk.

“Not bad!” V shouted. “That's better than we usually do.”

“It's not
better
. It's
wrong
. These are supposed to be equal.” She waved a register slip at us. “Maybe people should be trained on the register before they start ringing people up.”